Bill Clinton Optimistic About Obama’s ‘Clean Energy’ Prospects

It’s not clear from the recent budget deal on Capitol Hill that the dam has broken and the two parties are prepared to resolve longstanding differences over immigration, health care and other knotty policy questions.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton

REUTERS

But as he surveys the political terrain, former President Bill Clinton sees opportunities in the coming years for President Barack Obama to make some headway on the legislative front.

In a recent interview about the White House’s hiring of John Podesta as a senior adviser, Mr. Clinton voiced optimism that Washington can forge agreements in what he called “the clean energy space.” Two ripe areas: updating the electrical grid and retrofitting buildings to make them more energy-efficient, Mr. Clinton said.

Mr. Podesta served as White House chief of staff in Mr. Clinton’s second term, a period when the legislative machinery did not shut down despite fervent partisanship, Mr. Clinton said. Mr. Podesta’s experience and appreciation for what “the traffic will bear” in Washington will make him “extremely valuable” to the White House, he said.

“This political environment is not likely to be any more hostile than it was in 1998 and ’99,” Mr. Clinton said. “And we had two terrific years in terms of stuff that passed Congress. We got a lot of stuff done – and it wasn’t little stuff.”

“There’s a chance that he could put together, or help the White House and the Republicans and Democrats put together a coalition to put some more money into modernizing the electrical grids so you can connect the places where the sun shines and the wind blows to where the people are,” Mr. Clinton said.

The 42nd president was less certain of the prospects for a deal on immigration. The Senate has already passed a comprehensive immigration overhaul that would provide a path to citizenship for people living in the U.S. illegally. But the House has so far seemed unwilling to go along.

“On immigration, I think that the Republicans haven’t decided what to do about it yet,” he said. “That’s my sense.”

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